ICE=GESTAPO

It was a quiet, autumn morning in Detroit, Michigan. Many people were going to work. A group of Latino parents were seeing their kids off to school at the bus stop. Suddenly, agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) descended on a group of Latinos seeing their children off to school. Two men them were questioned and taken away. To put it mildly, the whole Latino community is up in arms. Democratic State Representative Rashida Tlaib called it an outrage, and made it clear that ICE has violated its own policies for doing this. Of course, the ICE denied it had done anything wrong, and they said their agents acted legally. Regardless of whether ICE’s actions were legal or not, they are highly questionable and have once again smashed the toes of a Latino community.

To put it mildly, this is not good press review for the federal agency. If anything, it is another disaster for the ICE, Detroit and its Latino community. It means that the Latino community will never trust ICE or any government agency if it attacks and arrests people just about anywhere and everywhere solely because of their immigration status. All Latinos were assured by current U.S. President Barack Obama that only known criminal undocumented with a long list of crimes or gang affiliations would be targeted. This is not what happened. In this case, two undocumented men were taken away by U.S. immigration in front of their kids at a school bus stop. So contrary to the President’s orders, ICE is acting like the hated Nazi Gestapo—they are everywhere and can act with total impunity and damn the law! This will be bad for the Detroit city government. The police, fire and state services departments have worked hard to establish a rapport with the Latino community. With the ICE act, this may have all been shot down the drain.

All of this has to make you wonder if there will be a difference who is president? A person who has lied to the American public time and again, or a person who is more of a bureaucrat with extremist friends and allies? Apparently, neither seem to be too concerned about the Latino vote in Detroit. We have to remember that Latinos will vote in this election too. This is only one case among too many in this country where Latinos have been lied to, hoodwinked and bamboozled. As long as federal agencies like the ICE act against the better interests of not only Latinos but other immigrant communities, does it matter who is president?